Rik Butcher wrote these notes for use at the Woodnewton First Festival held on 12th June 1982. Rik would like to point out that it is an interpretation of the careful research he has made, to make a story for the audience at the concert in the church.
Woodnewton, if records are anything to go by, has led a singularly blameless existence. As a village it seems to have carefully evaded all the major milestones of history. In an area littered with the bric-a-brac of the past, Woodnewton stands out as a village of staunch modesty.
Even the reference to Woodnewton in that most famous of all books, the Domesday Book, has an element of the dubious about it. The reference which is now widely accepted as referring to Woodnewton gives its name as Niewtone.
According to Domesday the Manor of Niewtone was held by one Reginald from Eustachius, or as we would say, Eustace, comprising three hides of land – 120 acres – sufficient to support 5 ploughs; in addition there were five smallholders with another 3½ ploughs-worth of land.
But history does not begin with a convenient event like the Norman Conquest or with the publication of a reference book like Domesday, however valuable it may turn out to be. It stretches far back in the mists of pre-history. Records are not on paper but lie beneath the surface of land which has been worked and reworked through thousands of seasons.
Scatters of worked flints which could date back to more than 10,000 years ago have been turned up by the ploughs in the fields around the village so someone we can be reasonably sure has been living abouts for a very long time. But in the village, itself no evidence of any pre-historic building has been uncovered. Indeed, the nearest field monuments are Perrio – once a paper making mill – and dates back to the Bronze Age.
The more recent archaeological technique of studying what is under the ground by looking at it from far above it using aerial photography has revealed that in the village nearest to Fotheringhay there was probably active farming in the Iron Age. This may have attracted Roman settlers later, certainly scatters of Roman pottery indicate occupation near the Southwick Road, probably a tenant farm belonging to villas known to have existed at Apethorpe and Cotterstock.
But when it comes to hard documented evidence that we can trust there is little to speak of before William I came and decided to do his nationwide survey to find out how worthwhile his conquering efforts had been.
There is a brief reference to the fact that in the reign of Edward the Confessor the land of Niewtone was worth a fairly paltry sum even for those days, the equivalent of 50p, presumably in rent per annum. By the time the Domesday Book was compiled a few decades later they had risen to £1.50. Whether that was an indication of rampant inflation, or a greater use of the land, we shall probably never know.
The picture we get of the village a thousand years ago is of a remote and small community, rather poor, lacking much power and dominated by the influences of a vast tract of woodland that formed the Rockingham Forest which at one time stretched from Stamford in the East to far beyond Kettering in the West.
The next twist in the village’s fortune came when the Manor of Niewtone passed to the hands of the Engaine family. Richard Engaine had founded a priory at Fineshade which over the centuries was to generate a rather more impressive history than the villages surrounding it which had helped to create its wealth.
Woodnewton’s connection with Fineshade came when Henry Engaine died and willed his lands in the village to the monks of Fineshade. Through the reign of Edward I between 1272 and 1307 Woodnewton lived a relatively untroubled life owing fealty to the prior at Fineshade and presumably enjoying his protection in return.
Certainly, we know that in the reign of Edward II in 1315 the prior was still Lord of Niewtone and that the village produced profits from the Manor of about £16 per year.
From the census of dwellings dating from the C13 Woodnewton was astonishingly stable in its population. There were around 60 houses in the village and remained so for close on five centuries.
We do know however at the beginning of the C14 that the climate in England was worsening. There was something like two centuries of dismal harvests and there was a distinct reduction in the area of the land worked for agriculture. It was in 1348 that the terrible plague known throughout Europe as the Black Death reached the British Isles. This pestilence was believed to have wiped out one third of the population of England. So it was not surprising that its devastating effects should be felt in the parish of woodnewton. But in fact, Woodnewtone proper appears to have been largely spared the horrors of the disease. But the village of Hale which lay not far from where Haverhill Farm is now sited but more towards what is now Cheeseman’s Lodge, was entirely wiped out. In 1356 it was recorded quoting “No one dwells or has dwelt in Hale near Woodnewton since the pestilence and the land is wasted by the King’s deer.”
The King’s deer were to be source of tribulation to the villagers of Woodenewton over the centuries. The deer could impinge with impunity the woodland and farmsteads around the village damaging crops while the villagers themselves faced desperately hard penalties if anyone was rash enough to try a little dead of night poaching.
The royal forest appears to have been ministered under Norman Forest laws. They enjoyed their own legal system and there is still in existence records of the ‘pleas of the forest’ cases heard at Northampton Eyre.
One of those cases dated 1209, describes how a doe was found with its throat cut in Nassington wood. Lurking under a nearby bush found one Henry the son of Benselin. He was arrested on suspicion of poaching and imprisoned. But when he appeared before the Justices he disclaimed all knowledge of the doe, and according to a report published later in the Victoria County History, explained his presence in the wood as being entirely lawful searching for his horse. The foresters and verderers seem to have given evidence in favour of the accused and decided he was indeed innocent. Guilt was transferred to one Richard Gelee, names as the reaper of Niewtone, who it seemed had imprudently fled on hearing of Henry’s arrest.
The record continues “because Henry himself has taken the cross and is not suspected and has lain for a long time in prison it granted to him that he may make his pilgrimage and let him start before Whit Sunday and if he returns and can find pledges of his fealty let him remain in the forest.” But this entry also shows that in those hard times collective responsibility was imposed on individual communities for the sins of single members. The whole township of Niewtone were ‘in mercy’ on account of their fugitive reaper.
But the royals were not only concerned with that property that roamed on four legs. They kept a close eye on who owned what and how much it was worth. Not least among them was the redoubtable Henry VIII, who in 1535 ordered a nationwide survey of the value of the estates of the monasteries and that inevitably included Fineshade and with it the Manor of Woodnewton.
Henry no doubt had in mind how much it would pay him to separate the church from its riches. We are therefore indebted for his grand mixture of avarice and principle in our search through the meagre records of Woodnewton’s history for we learn from them that the Wood of Niewtone consisted 15 acres rated at 20p an acre. After Henry dissolved the monasteries the Manor of Woodnewton was handed out to a no doubt grateful Edward Lord Clynton who was to hold it until 1551 when it was given to Sir Walter Mildmay. The land later passed on his death to his son Sir Anthony Mildmay who in his turn passed certain pastures known as Colleridge Closes to his only daughter Mary Lady Fane who carried it in marriage to Sir Francis Fane later to become the Earl of Westmorland.
And so Woodnewton’s fortunes and its history became bound up in the affairs of this powerful family. Of course, Woodnewton was just a part of a particularly grand empire and far from the centre of their interests. Although there are prodigious stock documents held at the County record office known sombrely as the Westmorland papers. Working through them for Woodnewton references was a task far beyond my resources of time, maybe I can set it aside as a labour of love for the distant future.
Suffice it to say that we are now moving into a period of growing literacy where more and more records had been kept and have survived. Records like the prolific letters of Lady Grace Mildmay who died in 1618 and through her legacy to the village providing money to help poor youngsters get a good start in life as apprentices her name remains well known in Woodnewton today where children, including my own, have enjoyed the benefits of her thoughtfulness more than 350 years previously.
Lady Grace left something just as enduring in its way – a correspondence preoccupied with health matters and offering the most extraordinary concoctions and potions and methods of remedy of various ailments. Some of these letters are exceedingly difficult to read through poor handwriting, faded ink and challenging spelling. She writes to “My good Besse”; “I darse not come to Apthorpe this day fearing I should take colde for I have been very ill. Wherefore I pray you perform the work you have in hand, touching the balm in my absence according to my direction here enclosed.”
There follows a long and complicated instruction on how to make the balm beginning with “as soon as you receive the white wine, which I think will be tomorrow in the afternoon, put the herbs and roots infuse in. On Munday next distil some part of then strain it from the herbs. Reserve the herbs to drain. Then put the water you draw off into the extracted liquor. On Tuesday distil the sum of the aquavity from the tinctures.” This is only the first paragraph of her complicated instruction and there is much more. But I regret there is no indication as to what complaint this extraordinary cure was designed to relieve. Lady Grace ends her letter “God give his blessing thereunto . Your very loving Mistress and assured friend, Grace Mildmay.”
The village did not have to rely entirely on literate families like the Mildmays and the Westmorlands to keep its records. In 1588 the first Church Register was opened. Hand written on velum it has faded badly and to my inexperienced eye is extremely difficult to read.
The first entry is May 5th, 1588, and it’s interesting because it produces a link of names to these modern days. A Mr. Britten is registered as the father of a son John, baptised that day. He was the father too of another child baptised in January of the next year. Several other names crop up in that early history which either by luck or through the continuity of generations are still to be found in Woodnewton; for example, Messrs Walker and Sharp.
The village as we know it today and can see it in some of the existing buildings dates from around this period although the bulk of the present old village fall into the period of 1660 to 1750. The exception of course is this building, the church itself.
St. Mary’s Church is itself a remarkable historical statement, for embodied in the fabric of this building lies the clues of history. We are further aided in our understanding of the church and its architecture by a private register compiled by Henry K Bonney, a Minister of the Prebend of Nassington, with responsibility for the souls of Woodnewton.
In a document compiled at the beginning of the C19 he gives much information about the church, its architecture and affairs. The original building dates from the end of the C12. At one time it had a central tower but this was demolished and all traces appear to have disappeared. About 1220 a south aisle was added to the nave. The present tower at the West end of the church is not earlier than C16. Some of the moulded timbers in the roof go back as late as the C15 though there’s no other woodwork in the church earlier than C17. Some pews date back from the same period and the two-desk revolving lectern is similarly very old. This difference in the age of the church and the houses would suggest that the medieval village of Niewtone could have been on a different site possibly more towards the south end of the present village. One suggestion is that it could have been even further to the east, perhaps as far away as Green Lane, as the churches were not always so obviously part of the community which they served.
About this time, it appears the church itself had been beautifully decorated with paintings showing stations of the cross and one large mural believed to depict the temple at Jerusalem. Unfortunately, these paintings, similar ones have survived at Nassington, were covered in plaster and only rediscovered during extensive repairs to the church in the early C19. According to Mr Bonney’s records unfortunately the workmen who made the discovery had largely destroyed the paintings before it occurred to one of them that maybe they were worth preserving.
These records of the church are fascinating in the way they throw up at regular intervals, names still so familiar to us today. For example, on January 4th 1710, Ann Bedfirth was married to one Thomas Pike.
But as well as reminding us of the families whose connections with Woodnewton stretch back over generations running into centuries it also gives an unconscious insight into the social conditions that prevailed year by year.
The burial records for 1741 show a sad toll of infants and children intermingled by people who were of up to eighty years old. The bulk of the deaths in the village seem to fit into these distinct periods of life. So, it seems that in Woodnewton of the C18 and C19 if you managed to survive infancy you had a good chance of reaching a ripe old age.
Another revealing reference which gives insight into the wealth of Woodnewton are the church terriers. These were declarations about how much parishioners of a particular village could raise to support the church.
A terrier delivered to the prebendary court in Nassington in 1750 stated that the sum of £8-18s-4d was paid to the church of Woodnewton by the inhabitants according to a rate levied. It was clearly not enough. But the unfortunate curate was it seems delivered from penury by the intervention of the governor of Queen Anne’s Bounty with a donation worth £200 per annum. Among those signing the terrier was John Franey whose name has been preserved in stone in the village on Mrs Walker’s house, marked John Franey – 1745.
As well as the rate levied on parishioners the same terrier lists the fees the curate could charge for his services: one shilling for publishing the marriage banns, and two shillings and six pence for marrying.
Another fascinating document still held by the church is the account book. On March 25th 1843 a Mr W H Gregory writes “This book is now 114 years old.” The book was closed simply because there were no further pages left in it. But the year-by-year accounts it contains begin in 1729 and are an utter delight to browse through.
The income for the church’s financial year between 1729 and 1730 was given as £17-18s-1½d, paid in the form of interest and dues that year. 5s-6d was paid for Communion wine at Christmas. By Easter that cost had risen to 7s. On January 2nd the sum of £1 was paid to Edward Reed – note the familiar name – for catching moles.
For writing the accounts Mr. Gregory was paid 1s-6d and was it seems well satisfied he accepted precisely that sum for years to come in an age before inflation had been invented. A day’s pay it seems was 1s-2d for a labourer if the 7d for half a day’s work paid to Robert King is anything to go by.
The church was much concerned with catching things in those days. For example, Matthew Bradshaw received a total of 15s his fee for catching foxes for three years. The church also fought a remorseless and largely losing war against sparrows. A payment of 1d was given for every dozen caught and over the years the total must add up to many hundreds of dozens.
In 1736 Thomas Weatherhead was probably the village handyman. He was paid 6d for mending the church lock and 5s-10d for unspecified efforts on behalf of the church the next year and for mending the belfry lock he was paid 6d again in 1738. In that same year Robert Tebbet was paid 1s for a fox he’d caught. Six pence was given to a poor man who had his thumb cut out and “pade for ate dozen sparrows 8d.”
Theses church accounts are revealing in how much they show how the poor were forced to beg for odd pennies to survive. Possibly these people trudged around the parishes following regular routes and spreading their burden around were able to go on exploiting the same source of support for a number of years.
Certainly we know that the man who had his thumb (tongue?) cut out received 6d on several occasions. Another year three men who had been ‘took by the Turks’ received 1s. Two women with a letter asking for money because they had lost their homes in a fire were given 1s-6d. Another man who suffered a loss through flooding received 1s.
1743 was it seems a particularly good year for sparrow catching. 57 dozen were caught and a sum of 4s-9d, nearly 25p, was paid out. The next year was even better – 70 dozen were caught and 6s-6d paid out.
Church bell ringers received 2s-6d for their efforts but on the occasion of the Duke of Westmorland’s birthday, 4s-6d was given to them.
Another curious (that is to me), payment was the recurring 6s-8d for ‘when the jury went out at Nassington court.’
Another survey, which in its way was very revealing, was sent out to parishes possibly throughout the country in May 1748. Certainly, Woodnewton received one and it asked some very leading questions. Like: “Have you any Methodist, papist or popish recusants?” The answer came back “No.” Things have changed.
An Act of Parliament against profane cursing and swearing has been passed and according to church law, if not the law of the land, it had to be read publicly in church four times a year. Was this happening? The enquiry asked. The answer came back – “Yes it was.”
During the C19 new records emerge in the form of directories. An early directory dated 1849 shows the rateable value of Woodnewton as £2106. The village is described as “pretty large”. A. Barfield is the landlord of the White Swan, Thomas Hardy the landlord of the Horse and Jockey and John Hill is landlord of the Hare and Hounds – now the home of the Sheaf family.
Also listed are the trades in the village. Eusebius Herapath was a beer retailer, but we also had a miller, shoemaker, saddler, baker, a dozen farmers and graziers and the nearest Post Office was at Wansford.
In 1834 the Rev Miles Berkeley was given the living of Woodnewton. Berkeley’s appointment was a kind of sinecure because by inclination and training he was a botanist and was to become a scientist of some distinction. A year later he was appointed chaplain to the Earl of Westmorland who clearly took him under his wing and decided to become patron to the scientist.
Mr. Berkeley married a gifted young woman named Cecilia Campbell in 1833. She was an accomplished linguist and translated some of his work, presumably from Latin to English. We know that her translations remain revered volumes in Kew Library. The Rev Berkeley between administering to the Woodnewton flock worked on bisecting and studying fungi brought back to Britain aboard H.M.S. Beagle at the end of her epic voyage down the South Atlantic – fungi collected by Charles Darwin himself.
Another fascinating set of records to emerge in the C19 were the census figures:- in 1801 the population of Woodnewton was 268. After a dip in the next decade, it began to climb steadily: 362 in 1821, 449 1831, 483 in 1841, and peaking at 529 in 1861. From that point the population declined with startling rapidity. By the turn of the twentieth century the numbers were back down to 271 only three more than there had been three hundred years previously. Ten years later the population sank to its lowest ebb ever – 231. After remaining remarkably static for most of the remainder of this century we see a dramatic curb up in 1971 and 1981 as a result of the new influx of people into the village stimulated by the development of Peterborough,
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Back in the C19 we see one of the most fundamental social changes of all finally arriving in Woodnewton. Six years after the Foster Education Act had created the idea of compulsory schooling it was finally made possible for the village children of Woodnewton in 1876 when the school was built and opened by the Church. At first the school was simply the main building and the additional ‘small room’ was added twenty years later.
The opening of the school was a grand occasion and those who remember our Centenary Celebrations in 1976 will recall how we tried to re-enact those events right down to inviting the Archdeacon of Oakham to preach and having the Nassington Band to play.
Unfortunately, the school’s early log, which the head teacher was required to keep to show what went on in the school day by day, has gone missing. The first head teacher was William Lucas and he certainly had his work cut out. In that single room 200 pupils first came to grips with the 3Rs. They were crammed into choir stalls ranging upwards like seats in a theatre.
Not that all 200 of Woodnewtons registered pupils were likely to turn up at the same time. Many children were required to help out on the farms. Harry Spademan talks of how his grandmother who kept the Hare and Hounds used to send two of her sons to school one day while keeping the others back to work the farm, sending the others off the next.
In 1894 as a result of a new local government act the Woodnewton Parish Council was first born to administer the affairs of the village. Complete records of the affairs of the Parish Council run continuously from that date and include a book of the members’ declaration on acceptance of office. That book runs from December 31st 1894, when Watson Parsons became the first person to accept office as a councillor up to the 22nd March 1982, when Carol Hicks added her name to the roll call. At the first meeting it was proposed by William Firmeadows and seconded by George Fitzjohn that Albert Bellairs be a candidate for the district council. It is interesting to note that in writing the word Woodnewton in those early minutes it is always given as two words.
The minutes themselves are strangely muted in that they give formal decisions of who proposed and seconded the motions but little of the discussions and arguments behind the issues. On November 6th 1919, for example we learn that the draft conveyance for the allotments was approved. A question of management was discussed at considerable length says the minutes but an offer from the clerk to do the work of letting the allotments and collecting the rents and any other business pertaining to the arrangement for an increase in salary of £2-10s per annum was not accepted. The rules of the allotments fixed the rent at 5s per year and those occupying the new cottages – St. Mary’s Hill – were to have first option of renting the pigsties at 2s-6d per annum. First allotment holders were R Knight, Charles Wise, Mr Saunders and Mr T Pridmore.
In 1933, we learn that the village still did not have mains water. Twelve wells in the village were subject to analysis by the Ministry of Health. The aim was the prevention of epidemics in the area. Doctor Elliot views, says the minutes, was that the water of the said wells was polluted and bad to drink. Notwithstanding that expert opinion the decision of the meeting was that the proposal to supply water be not proceeded with.
Eventually mains water did come to Woodnewton. Having got the supply of water we have to note in 1948 of how the village was going to invest in a hosepipe as part of its firefighting equipment.
The minutes of the Parish Council during the period of the Second World War shows little to suggest the turmoil surrounding them. At the Parish meeting on October 15th 1945, there was a discussion on thanksgiving week. It was proposed by Mr R G Pike and seconded by Mr Wells that a Whist Drive should be held to provide a welcome home fund for the men serving in the Forces.
But clearly both World Wars left their marks on Woodnewton. The American daylight bombing raids were built up over the Willowbrook valley in the Second. Aircraft from Polebrook, Molesworth and Grafton would arrive in huge circling stacks, it is recalled these could take as long as an hour to complete before the formation was ready to set off on their way to Germany. Half and hour later the fighter escort from Kings Cliffe flew over gently catching up the bombers as they flew eastwards. One of those fighters ran into trouble shortly after take off and the pilot successfully managed to keep the plane flying to avoid the village of Woodnewton and crashed into the meadow near Willowbrook. The young pilot was killed but a tiny plaque commemorating his name is still to be found on one of the pillars in the church. It was from that fighter base at Kings Cliffe, I am told, that the famous Glen Miller, leader of the orchestra the sound of which still survives in the Sid Lawrence orchestra today, set off on his last fatal journey and disappeared.
As we move to modern times and very much to the memories of people still living in the village, one grand milestone worth mentioning is the Queen’s Coronation in 1953. A Coronation Committee was formed and decided to hold weekly house to house collections to raise money for the ‘Big Day’. The following, do they remember I wonder, were collectors: Mrs Mears, Cicilly Allen, Mrs E Britten and Miss Walker. One idea was to hire a television set for everyone to view. A total of £74-0s-7d was collected and at the end of the celebrations which began with a procession in the village at 2.15 and ended with a firework display at 11.15 that night, a sum of £4-6s-1d was left over. After 5s a piece going to the cleaners of the school and chapel the remainder of the money was distributed in the form of tea to the over-70s in the village.
If in a hundred years time our successors gather in this church to produce another musical history of Woodnewton they will probably regard the last decade or so as one of the most significant in the village’s history. Woodnewton has been transformed, new roads have been added, the number of houses nearly doubled and influences from far away have made their impact.
2020